Unite Launches an Online Strategy to Mobilise Members to Fight for Jobs During the Recession and Beyond

LONDON - Unite, Britain’s biggest union, has launched an online strategy to mobilise members to fight for jobs during the recession and beyond.

With the help of Blue State Digital (BSD), the company US President Obama used throughout his presidential campaign, the union is stepping up its e-campaign strategy.

The campaign is using online networking to mobilise union members to attend a traditional nationwide march and rally this Saturday (16th May). The march is the centrepiece of the Unite for Jobs campaign. Thousands of people from across the country will be uniting at 11am at Highfield Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15.

The union has sent out almost a million specially tailored emails during the campaign to get the word out about the unions’ demands, the march, and to build an online relationship with members by talking about the impact of the recession on them.

The online campaign has allowed the union to go beyond its own membership with over 6500 invites sent out by members to their family and friends through the union’s email system. This month alone Unite has had on average 19,000 hits to its website per day. The strategy has allowed the members to become online advocates for the union.

Unite’s campaign is to press for a clear programme of action to help protect the approximately one million skilled jobs in this country that depend on manufacturing, including:

- A short-time working subsidy to keep skilled workers in post and off the dole; - Action by our government to defend manufacturing on the scale of our EU competitors; - Rapid action to ensure easier access to credit from the now state-owned banks.

The union has received 16,000 petition signatures in a week calling on the government to do more to help working people during the recession.

The campaign has ensured that 500 people have written to their MPs asking them to support the Unite for Jobs march.

Earlier this year, Unite launched a new interactive website and so far this month, the website has had an average of 19,000 hits a day. The site allows members to tailor their own pages on the issues which are relevant to their working lives. The union also has its own internet based video cast service ‘Union TV’ which features news about topical trade union issues and video packages showing trade unions at work. The aim is to provide a trade union perspective on all the major industrial and political issues, an uncensored view from working people on what’s happening to them and their families today.

Unite’s joint general secretary, Tony Woodley, said:

“Unite is using online strategies to mobilise its members to fight for jobs and to give them a voice during the recession.

“The campaign has begun by bringing together the old and new by using online networking to mobilise working people to attend a traditional nationwide march and rally in Birmingham on Saturday.”

“The stories people have told us are astonishing and tragic, we’re proud to give them a voice. The web is a way of allowing people to be active - even if they can’t march with us.

“Everyday union activists across the country come face-to-face with employers and the government fighting to keep people in work. A 2 million strong union also has huge potential to harness the power of the internet to communicate with and listen to our members and potential members.”

Source: Unite the Union

Contact: Ciaran Naidoo on +44-(0)7768-931-315